Fresh ideas for building a Christ-centred community

Listening

Breakfast at the airport (bagel in case you were curious- they do stick to your teeth) and over the snowcapped mountains to Kamloops. It’s a desert environment after the rainforest of Vancouver - not as in cacti, cowboys and tumbleweed but as in arid mountain slopes dropping down sheer to clear lakes - there is so much water and it doesn’t give any sustenance to the bare slopes above it, which feels horribly parabolic: the parable of the sower but Jesus doesn’t mention ground where there is no earth at all.

There's a wonderful Fresh Expression of church called Open Doors in Calne in Wiltshire, who are far-sighted enough not just to get on with their own thing but to share it with others as well, and they invited me to talk about Messy Church at an open evening to encourage other churches who were interested as well as their own.

This was a jolly one, as we weren't sure who was coming or from where, and as far as I knew, nobody present would have any idea what Messy Church is or why they should do it.